


Barren Field

by easternCriminal



Series: A Garden Growing Love (flower soulmates au) [6]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, Soulmates AU, Ten Years Later, flower soulmates au, future arc, platonic soulmates au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 07:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15068624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternCriminal/pseuds/easternCriminal
Summary: "It was odd - the certainty that flowers would never again spring from under her skin. But in a way oh how awfully beautiful the last bloom for each of them had been. "





	Barren Field

It was odd - the certainty that flowers would never again spring from under her skin. But in a way oh how awfully beautiful the last bloom for each of them had been. 

 

The first time, when the purple auricula had sprung up all across her body, she wasn’t sure what was going on - only that Mammon must be in trouble. She had sprung from her hideout in an instant, Colonello and Fon close behind her - this was before they were sure they were being targeted, when they could afford to have more than one of them in a place at a time. Back before so many codes and hideouts and time simply being on the run. The auricula’s leave a path behind the three of them as each of them have to resist choking on the petals as the flowers just  _ don’t stop coming. _

Eventually the flowers stop.

Eventually they find the body.

 

Well. 

What’s left of it. 

 

Lal Mirch wants nothing more than to curl and cry, but this is war now. She’s been through war, she knows how to deal with it, how to bury the pain so deep inside of you that that section of yourself that wants to scream out and claw at something until  _ something  _ gives stays locked away for too long, in a way that can never be truly fixed or mended but that is necessary to survive. 

They give themselves one night to grieve. Fon carefully uses their small ability to manipulate lightning flames to harder a single flower for each of them - an eternal bloom of Mammon. They burn the rest of them at their old hideout, sending the ashes into the wind. A tradition among Fon’s family. They watch the black specs ride the gusts of air into the sky, carrying it past the full moon, up to the stars. Colonello is out keeping watch as they grant one another a small chink in their armor. Fon holds her hand as she chokes back tears. 

It’s the last time she sees the comforting Storm.

 

After that she’s never traveling with anyone. All the Arcobaleno have gone into their own version of hiding as the world around them continues to crumble into dust. After three months she meets up with Skull in a little place in Alaska. It’s the first time she has a chance to talk about the incident of losing a soulmate since that night under the moon. He’s a sensitive guy and wears his heart on his sleeve. It’s the first time she stays in one place for more than 24 hours since three months ago. 

Lal stays there three days - that’s all the time she gives herself. Their shared soulmates get a few scuffles but nothing like the explosion of flowers on the night of Mammons death. Skull admits he wonders how close they’ve gotten to that situation with him before, but he gives a roguish smile that just looks a little silly on his baby-pierced face when he says he’s too good at cheating the grim reaper for that. 

 

Two weeks later while somewhere in the Himalaya’s she explodes in green iris’. She doesn’t know where Verde had holed himself up, there’s no chance of her finding his body, so instead she tries to replicate what Fon did and preserve the flowers. Tries to copy the same focused and concentrated way he had moved that night. She burns up the only flowers she had saved trying. Instead she casts them into the wind, swallowing her desire to scream as she sent another of her soulmates towards the sky.

Some of Byakuran’s agents find her that night, huddled up around the few flowers she had selfishly help onto, knowing they wouldn’t last more than a day. ‘Idiot’ Verde seems to berate in her ear as she fights tooth and nail to get out of them, to live. She wonders how much she worries the others, how many Sea Hollies are springing up on their skin right now. 

After that night she tries to let what’s left of Verde, the memories she has of him, lead her. She burns each flower from her soulmates as they sprout and tears her thoughts away from the danger they must be in. Verde believed sentimentality would get the best of some of them one of these days. 

She wonders if it was sentimentality that got the best of him, if the lace leaf that had been a precursor to the abundance of iris’s was any indication.

 

Lal never gets flowers from Yuni anymore. She’s unsure if that’s a good thing or a foreboding prophecy.

 

With the Thunder and Mist Arcobaleno gone the Tri-ni-sette begins to decompose. The weight it spread on her is crushing, and with each use of her flames she can feel the discord in the air church inside of her, tearing bigger and bigger scars.

It’s getting more and more painful to access her flames when Fon saves her again. Surrounded by hired men, it’s the lace leaf that suddenly blooms across her body that distracts them enough to give her a chance to run. She loses almost all the lace leaf in the 17 hours of running after that, only one survive, clenched in her hand. She bursts it into flame and sends the ashes away. She’s not as eloquent as he once was, but she does her best to mutter some words as the charred remains of her once soulmate dim.

Colonello sees her the day Skull dies. The two facts are mostly unrelated, but it’s odd. Seven months on her own for two of her soulmates to suddenly insert themselves back into her life at the same time. He has more scars than she remembers, so does she. The scars of using her flames are hidden beneath clothing and capes, but the way he avoids touching her back says he knows. The flowers would be obvious. 

He gravitate next to each other for the better part of three hours - it’s the most they can risk together at this point. The conversation doesn’t come as easy as it used to. They try to talk about what’s happening, try to talk like nothing’s changed, try to walk in silence. Nothing is comfortable anymore. Nothing except the fact that they are hand in hand. 

They split from one another between mountain ranges, and their hands cling together for a few fleeting moments before they leave one another again, cast aside like petals in the wind. 

She feels safe in the new moon that night. There’s no light and Lal sticks to the safety of the shadows in a big city. It’s in the back alley that the Jacobs Ladder flowers spread over her skin and shed just as quickly, millions of little buds blooming. She grabs them by the dozen and flees to the more decrepit parts of the town. Several homeless are huddles around a dumpster fire and she tosses them in. 

It’s all she can do now to burn what remains.

 

Lal bumps into Reborn somewhere in Siberia. He instantly reaches up and presses his hand against her cheek, where the scars are just beginning to show. She can tell he’s still protecting the Decimo, the only comfort she has. He reveals he’s partially responsible for her problem, but anything that with damn Byakuran’s plan is worth it, regardless of the pain it brings her. 

 

Colonello dies in her arms. They reconvened shortly after the air grew toxic for the full Arcobalenos, and as every day he grew weaker the enemy grew closer. They’re separated while fleeing and by the time she finds him he’s beyond wounded, but safely away from the enemy. The Larkspur fall from her and cover his body, the clsoest she gets to burying him in a grave. She grabs his pacifier and runs. 

His pacifier is dim and a dull blue. 

 

She aches all over these days. 

 

Reborn is careful enough she rarely has flowers sprout anymore

 

Four months later the yellow begonia’s sprout from her body. The inevitable hurts in a dull way. She wants to drown in the yellow, to join her soulmates. She burns the flowers by the thousands and the she wants to follow the ashes as they make their climb, chase them to where those rainbow souls are and embrace them all once again. 

Instead she hunts down where Reborn was struck down, only to find pieces of him strewn across the room. Their thoroughness churns her stomach.

She holds herself at night now, fingers searching over her skin, trying to find flowers, buds, anything. 

But there’s nothing.

 

She is now just a barren garden.

**Author's Note:**

> Reborn - begonia  
> Fon - lace leaf   
> Verde - green iris   
> Skull - lacobs ladder  
> Mammon - auricula   
> Colonello - larkspur  
> Lal Mirch - Sea Holly


End file.
